


he cleans up well, honest

by odditycurator



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 00:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odditycurator/pseuds/odditycurator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Corvo first arrives at the Tower, the court officials have misgivings about his hair.</p>
<p>I like to think that when he was younger, he kept it in a ponytail. I don't know why this is. I think it's probably Ezio's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he cleans up well, honest

They spend weeks trying to convince him to cut his hair- roughly shoulder length, tied back loosely with a ribbon.  
  
“You look…  _scruffy_ ,” his instructor tells him, his face pinched. “It’s improper.”  
  
“It’s proper in Serkonos,” he says, sullen.  
  
“Yes, well.  _This isn’t Serkonos._ ”  
  
Their first mistake was teaching him to eavesdrop, and he hears everything they say about him.  _Stubborn. Needs to watch his mouth. Slight accent- we’ll get rid of it. Would clean up well, if he’d only make the damned effort._

After two weeks have gone by and his hair is still unacceptably long, they switch to new tactics. He won’t listen to them, but he might listen to  _her_.  
  
Jessamine, however, wrinkles her nose. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”  
  
The advisor sighs. “Milady, I’m just saying that he-”  
  
“He can have his hair however he wants,” she says, and folds her arms and stares.  
  
He hears what they say about her, too.  _Difficult child. Needs to be reminded that while she will one day be empress, that day has not yet come._  
  
The advisors refuse to drop the issue. They send one of the servants to his room armed with scissors. Unfortunately, anyone who has been present for his combat training can attest that Corvo is  _fast,_ and as it turns out, dodging scissors is not much different from dodging a sword. When confronted afterwards, the servant explains she has no interest in leaping out a window after the Lord Protector-in-waiting, no matter  _how_  long his hair is. An hour later, they find him on the other side of the Tower, up a tree.   
  
They tell him this has gone on long enough. This is  _childish_ , his instructor says, brandishing a sword, and if Corvo won’t let the servants cut his hair then he’ll damn well do it himself. One of the nearby guards remarks that he’s never seen anyone manage to dodge a blade and  _sulk_ at the same time.

In response, Jessamine pulls him aside one morning, a gleam in her eye and an extra hairpin in her pocket. 

Corvo holds still while she fiddles, wincing when she tugs at loose strands. She has handmaids to do her hair for her, and her inexperience shows in her efforts. But it’s good enough.   
  
When her tutors arrive, he is standing obediently behind her, deadpan, hands clasped behind his back. Hair pinned like an empress.   
  
 _Let him have it_ , he hears them say that evening.  _It’s not worth the effort._


End file.
